mercredi 6 octobre 2010

From Journalistic ethics of James O'Keefe to Psychiatry (over Wallraff)

"As for O'Keefe dressing up as a pimp, yes, it is outrageous, but far less outrageous than the fact that so many ACORN employees were so anxious to work with him to help him establish and under-age prostitution ring"

James O'Keefe had a way of infiltrating ACORN. What if ACORN had a way of infiltrating under age prostitution rings?

The evil DONE by ACORN is more in the line of collaboration with the culture of death.

That is why I liked ACORN getting it for agreeing "yes, far too many black children are born, do donate for contraception and abortion."

I hope O'Keefe's videos about that may still do some good for stopping that in a wider perspective. But I am not sure that is all there is.

Since he is my friend, I will notify him what I said here.

He did imitate someone whose Chestertonian claim is greater, Günther Wallraff, infiltrator of German mental hospitals.

J. P.: See here's the issue---people are getting a whole bunch of ideas conflated at once. Hans, aren't you confusing the PP prank calls with the ACORN videos? ACORN is ostensbily grounded in this:

"The members of ACORN take on issues of relevance to their communities, whether those issues are discrimination, affordable housing, a quality education, or better public services. ACORN believes that low- to moderate-income people are the best advocates for their communities, and so ACORN's low- to moderate-income members act as leaders, spokespeople, and decision-makers within the organization."

By itself, you'd even have to say that this mission statement is noble and admirable. The question is are they using that as a mask for illicit campaigning and influence. As I said--O'Keefe did nothing to elucidate that question. And now we'll likely never know for sure.

The right has imputed that the upper management of ACORN are pro-Choice, which fits the partisan profile, but it's a reach to compare the ACORN videos to Gunther Wallraff even in the most charitable light. (Besides Wallraff's work has also raised questions in ethics for some people. Remember, according to Catholic tradition, nothing can be measured by the ends alone.)

I've said elsewhere that the prank calls to Planned Parenthood were much more acceptable, though I think any information gained in pranks is going to be open to assault by the opposition. What would be more useful is internal documents that state that as a organizational policy.

You could just as easily take pedophile priests and say they are representative of Catholic moral teaching on sex with minors.

I'm not saying that Planned Parenthood isn't grounded in eugenics--of course those who know their history know that they are, but as far as educating the public on that, the PP prank calls are insufficient but amusing supporting evidence of that philosophical orientation.

I think a whole bunch of issues and facts are getting jumbled here--the planned parenthood stunt (and the lucky charms one which was hilarious) are completely separate from ACORN.

Answer:

OK, PP was not included in ACORN's agenda?

As for just war, it is true that not just killing but also some kinds of ruse are licit - but St Thomas actually states that lying is not one of them. Ambush is, if you get out of it before you start the killing.

Oops, it was even Lila Rose who did the PP prank?

J. M. : What's the difference between a ruse and a lie? I think the problem I'm having is that if you follow the logic of Aquinas on Just War regarding killing, how is it that killing is can be justified, but protecting a person's life through a lie cannot even be mitigated to a lesser sin? If I read the Catechism properly, circumstances DO matter in terms of removing culpability for a lie, even if they can never make a lie something "good".

Answer: Killing a bad man is an act of justice. Lying to him is not.

J.M. : But killing a bad man is not necessarily an act of justice, at least not according to the recent popes who seem to prefer that even very bad people not be executed if there is any other way possible to protect society from them. And isn't one of the rationales for accepting such killings that society has a right to defend itself? And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that lying can ever be made good, I'm simply saying that lying to protect a person from an evil aggressor does not seem as damaging as killing a person to protect someone from an evil aggressor. I mean, if you lied in such a situation you'd be operating under duress and with the intent of a) not killing the aggressor, and b) protecting the innocent party. Or are we saying it would actually be more moral to kill a person who was dragging away an innocent person than to tell them a lie to misdirect them?

Answer: "Recent Popes" may have been misled by psychiatrists about what is merciful and what is a reasonable hope of recovery. I think the then Bishop Ratzinger was, when he sheltered a priest having done what he knew to be sexual misconduct (he did maybe not know age of other party) and he also knew the traditional way was defrocking.

J. M. : Actually, I think then Cardinal Ratzinger intended on defrocking the priest in question, but the offending priest died before the process could be completed. As usual, the media completely misinterpreted the slowness of the wheels of justice at the Vatican as the Vatican "protecting" the offender rather than giving the accused due process.

Answer : No, you are talking about another story.

The one I talk about is when he was bishop [I think that was it, or maybe just priest]. He was not told what kind of offence it was and had nothing to do with the process.

He offered a room - shelter in the sense of couch-surfing - to a priest whose bishop was sending him to councelling rather than defrocking for a sexual misconduct the nature of which he did not know. What he DID know was the priest was getting to a psychologist or psychiatrist, to some kind of shrink.

Has he learned something from the mistake? (Even if not his own, mistakes in his knowledge are a matter he could licitly learn from).

a - he has not changed preference for long and painful rehabilitations over death penalty

b - he has on World Health Day 2006 pronounced one in five as suffering from a mental disorder or disease

c - he pardoned Susana Maiolo without making a process for what was objectively a sacrilege, though as against a celebrant only starting the procession very much less so than if she had done it during directly Eucharistic parts of Holy Mass: as if she was sure she was deluded.

What if she tried to make the Church make a process so she could make one against psychiatry? Then it was - to all appearances I know of - wasted on Benedict XVI. Or should one say Mr Ratzinger?

[Immediately added:]obviously - am I cursed by some priest or something? - "as if she was sure she was deluded" shall be "as if HE was sure she was deluded".

J. M. : From what I've read, BXVI, has evolved in his understanding of the nature of the sex abuse problem over the years. Like so many people in both the Church and the secular world, he followed the wisdom of secular experts about rehabilitating offenders, but over time he became convinced that was not working at all. Which just goes to show, sometimes the old ways really are the best ways. One in five seems rather high, but if you include mild depression, I guess you could get to that number. However, I seriously think if people availed themselves of the sacrament of reconciliation more often, even mild depression would be greatly reduced.

Is Susana Maiolo the one that jumped the rope and attacked him? I'm not quite sure I follow what you are saying about the Pope's pardon of her actions regarding "making a process".

Answer : My point is has he evolved WITH psychiatry in sex abuse problems or has he evolved ABOUT psychiatry?

She is the one who floored him. A thing that has certainly been done to her once in a while in those institutions.

If she had been put to trial according to Church law she could have explained that detail in her background. And asked his holiness - supposing him to be so, I have not lost hope yet - whether he was aware of that, and if he had found the sensation confortable, and if it was fair to her and other victims of psychiatry for him to tell priests they should continue telling her and others to bear their "mental suffering" as a cross instead of complaining about mental institutions as a crime.

But I fear, as long as he thinks it humane to oppose death penalty - despite Romans 13 - because he hopes psychiatry will do better, he is deaf to such appeals.

That is my great problem with him. That was my great problem with my Roumanian bishop. (Is he holding me excommunicate and is Rome giving back Orthodox ecclesiastic power so he can do it?) He preached about suffering in Easter 2008 and thought "mental illness" an item sufficiently important to mention, i e he too agrees with psychiatry.

J. M. : My understanding is that BXVI has lost his faith in the psychiatry's power to "cure" pedophilia. He now understands through experience with recidivism amongst offenders that this pathology is rarely cured through therapy. In fact, he was often at odds with JPII, because JPII had seen so many priests falsely accused of sexual abuse by Communists that he thought that most accusations were likely false. I think Pope Benedict came to terms with the reality of the situation before JPII.

I don't think speaking about mental illness as being a cross to bear necessarily is an endorsement of mental institutions, and I hope that not all mental institutions are criminal in their operation, although I do know that there are often abuses, and I'm sure BXVI would not approve of those.

I also don't think the reason he opposes the death penalty for killers is because he thinks these people can be cured, but rather to give them as much time as possible to repent and possibly be reconciled with God.

I'm not sure I understand. Are you Roumanian Orthodox by profession? And if you are, why do think that the Pope must give the Roumanian Church the authority to excommunicate you? Don't you believe the Roumanian Church has the authority to do that without the Pope's approval?

Answer: "My understanding is that BXVI has lost his faith in the psychiatry's power to "cure" pedophilia."

Yes. So has psychiatry. Does that prove him independent of psychiatry? No.

"I don't think speaking about mental illness as being a cross to bear necessarily is an endorsement of mental institutions, and I hope that not all mental institutions are criminal in their operation, although I do know that there are often abuses, and I'm sure BXVI would not approve of those."

By telling someone he or she is mentally ill, he is refusing to DISCOVER the abuses. So are you if you hope they are not all criminal. At least if you disapprove of Wallraff (who found out the German ones were a few decades ago, then he has done other stuff) - was that you?

In psychiatry among ten patients, it is not a question as many think of nine mentally ill and maybe the tenth one a mistake, it is a question of nine who are sane and maybe one who is mad. I am not saying the others are always morally all right - would you be after years of being treated with limitations of freedom and safety gadgets originally applied to madmen? I am saying they are NOT MAD.

Psychiatrists tend to be the same, they miss both sanity and danger in persons.

J.M. : Hans, my aunt was bipolar for most of her adult life, and when she would have one of her bouts with either mania or depression, I often feared that she would either hurt herself or get hurt, because she wasn't thinking clearly. She was only hospitalized once or twice due to her mental illness, but I assure you she wasn't just a unique thinker, or sad, or weird, she was like a different person than the one she was when she wasn't having problems. And although her treatments weren't perfect, they usually were able to bring her back to her normal state through medication. However, I do see your point that a lot of people are diagnosed as mentally ill when they are really just dealing with difficult circumstances in their life. Being depressed when your life has been turned upside down is a normal response, not an abnormal one.

I don't know anything about Wallraff', so I don't think I'm the one you're thinking of that disapproved of his work. And I certainly wouldn't sanction abuses once they were uncovered. It makes me sick to think that people who are mentally fragile would be abused when they already have more than their share of problems.

Answer: bipolar? nothing worse?

a hot bath with roses or other things can be "done to" a depressive person (including bipolar during depressive period) - which is why people in depression are fearly easy to treat and fairly well treated in such places

quite sure it was her thoughts as opposed to emotions that were "not clear"?

I have seen a person have a very strange and ironic humor during a week of sleeplessness about once or twice a year - but never harming either herself or others, whether hospitalised or not. It also passed after a week (usually when she got her menstruation) whether she was hospitalised or not.

[adding about me and Roumanian Orthodox profession:] In answer to questions missed above: I am a convert to Catholic Church, sedisvacantist under last years of J.P.-II, exceited about election of Ratzinger, then disappointed - over this very point of psychiatry! - and went to Roumanian Church, whose bishop for Western Europe disappointed me too, to be precise with his Easter Pastoral of 2008. A year ago I went back to FSSPX (Mgr Lefèbvre's inheritors).

If traditional Western theology holds, Orthodox bishops lack jurisdiction and so lack power to excommunicate anyone, let alone a Catholic. St Ignatius of Loyola wrote the Copt Patriarch of Alexandria had neither jurisdiction nor grace to give Ethiopians. Be it noted, his quarrel was not over hesychasm - he prayed hesychastically himself and taught others to do so, though not with the Jesus prayer - but over their rejection of Rome's authority.

If they have jurisdiction now, does it mean they always had it and I exposed myself or does it mean they got it back when Paul VI kissed Athenagoras?

@J. P., I forgot this part: "You could just as easily take pedophile priests and say they are representative of Catholic moral teaching on sex with minors."

Sex as in marital relation or sex as fornication especially stuprum, seducing a virgin? Fornicating by seducing a virgin is worse than doing it with someone who already has whether that virgin is 14 or 20.

Marital relations are another matter and licit whether newly wed the bride be 12 or 20.